Increasing popularity of prepackaged foods has encouraged food manufacturers to expand the number and types of foods supplied, especially in the area of single serving sizes which have found a large market with persons who carry a light meal with them from their place of residence to work, school, or some other place remote from home.
The appeal of prepackaged puddings for this market must reside largely in their desirable taste, mouthfeel, and appearance. This is particularly true for homestyle tapioca puddings, which have a very distinctive appearance, and include characteristic and uniformly dispersed tapioca particles in the form of opalescent or translucent pearls comprising gelatinized tapioca starch particles. These particles are expected in tapioca pudding because of the long history of their presence there, so any mass produced tapioca pudding is also expected to contain the same type of starch pearls.
Another important consideration is taste. It is important that the mass-produced pudding taste as much as possible like the home cooked counterpart. A part of this overall impression of taste is the texture, appearance and mouthfeel, cumulatively referred to as the organoleptic properties.